


And Surrender to Me

by merle_p



Series: Love and War [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arguing, Armitage Hux Lives, Blow Jobs, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Lovers, Face-Fucking, Feelings, Hopeful Ending, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Planetary Politics, Post-Canon, Post-War, Restraints, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Secret Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:54:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22619695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: Their encounters have always been frantic, rushed, a violent clash of desire, frustration, and built-up negative energies, dulled only somewhat by the muted daze of hard liquor. There’s never been time to sit and watch and contemplate the different ways to take apart,destroythe body he’s got under his hands, and as he loops the leather straps through the headboard and pulls them tight around Dameron’s wrists, he is so overwhelmed with possibilities that he is not sure he knows where to begin.Sequel toLay Down Your Arms.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Series: Love and War [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641784
Comments: 24
Kudos: 131
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	And Surrender to Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [humanveil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/gifts).



> Uhm, so I may have gone a little overboard here. I wrote [Lay Down Your Arms](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/chocolatebox2020/works/22422142) and thought I’d gotten those two out of my system, but they kept bothering me until I agreed to write this sequel. So, here’s another chapter from _The Adventures of General Hux, the Emotionally Needy Sexual Sadist, and General Poe, the Conscientious Power-Bottom with the Self-Destructive Streak, Trying to Deal with the F-Word_ (and no, I don’t mean fucking. Although there’s that too). I do think it's ultimately possible to read the fics separately, but some things in this one probably make more sense if you read _Lay Down Your Arms_ first.
> 
> The titles of the first and second fic in this series taken together (“Lay down your arms and surrender to me”) are a line from the Pearl Jam song [Soldier of Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vcGqDhv4xE), which is about both love and (the end of) war, just like these two stories. (I do also admit that the idea of Poe as the “Soldier of Love” secretly makes me happy, so there’s that.)

The only instance during the sentence hearing that succeeds in shaking Hux out of his dispassionate stupor is the moment they remove his ankle monitor. 

Apparently, someone thought it would be a good idea to let Dameron do the honors, and there is just something wildly ironic about watching General Dameron kneel down at his feet and lift up the hem of his pants, not unlike an elegant gentleman courting his lady in a trashy holo romance novel. 

Dameron produces an electronic key and without much fanfare slides the monitor off his foot, careful not to touch the areas where the skin has been chafed red by the prolonged constant contact with the metal. Hux allows himself to sink into the physical sensation of Dameron’s firm grip, the pressure of a slightly sweaty palm and rough callouses against his skin, and wills himself to believe that there is no need to feel anything when Dameron picks up the implant gun and places it against Hux’ lower calf. 

“Ready?” Dameron asks quietly, looking up at him with an unreadable expression on his face, and there are so many possible responses to that, none of them being what ultimately comes out of his mouth. 

“I’m ready,” he says coolly, putting his best General Hux voice to good use. Dameron lowers his eyes in something like embarrassment, and then he pulls the trigger. 

There is the brief sting of sharp pain shooting through his leg, followed by a vague sense of burning in the general area of his ankle, and then there is nothing left to see but a faintly glowing yellow dot where the microchip has been embedded in his flesh. 

And just like that, it’s done. He is registered, categorized, branded, put on an electronic leash controlled by the New Council until the day he dies, like a piece of cattle allowed to roam the meadows under the illusion of freedom until it is time for the slaughter. 

The world around him swims back into focus. Across the room, the diplomats are getting to their feet, ready to leave now that the grand show is over. Beneath him, Dameron is rolling down his pant leg, carefully smoothing out the fabric, before he too rises and extends his left arm. After a moment of hesitation, Hux accepts the hand, allowing Dameron to help him stand. 

“I’ll see you later,” Dameron says, a throwaway phrase that means nothing to anyone in hearing distance, and lets go of his hand. 

Hux watches him saunter over to the big entrance doors, where General Finn and the Yavin IV delegation are lingering, welcoming and absorbing him seamlessly into their little group. 

Once they are gone, he sits back down in his chair and doesn’t get up until the last person has long left the room. 

The results of the final vote had ultimately been nothing if not anticlimactic. The discussion about what to do with him had gone on for so long, he’d long stopped caring about the finer points of their arguments, or even what conclusion they would eventually reach.

In the end, he supposes, it came down to this: On the one hand, in the face of the violence he has committed, the death penalty seemed so pathetically insufficient a punishment that some felt they might as well not bother; on the other hand, the New Council was working hard to present itself as better than … well, better than the First Order anyway, and executing political enemies just didn’t look that good for any organization claiming to care about justice and mercy. Add to that the minor issue that he had provided the Resistance with invaluable information that might very well have helped them win the war, and killing the individual who risked his life to help the cause – well, that would have been just plain embarrassing. 

The final decision was still tight. Out of the fifteen represented delegations, four voted for death, four for lifelong house arrest. The Mandalorian delegation abstained, which meant that the first votes were outnumbered, very narrowly, by the voices in favor of infinite parole, with conditions it had taken the Council days to hash out in advance. 

Dameron voted for parole, and that caused a murmur to run through the room, more so because General Finn had raised his hand with those in favor of house arrest, making the Resistance delegation the only one not to show a unified front. 

Finn, at least, didn’t bat an eye at Dameron’s vote, which Hux took to mean that he had known it was coming. Instead, he slung his arm around Dameron’s shoulder for a brief, tight hug, and Hux could even appreciate how strategically clever this public display of unity was, once he squashed the sudden irrational, unwelcome sting of jealousy he felt at the sight. 

The day after the sentence hearing, he wakes up with no intentions of getting out of bed. After all, it is not like he has anything to do, or anywhere to be – not today, not in the near future, nor ever, really, in a way. 

Eventually, though, his bladder starts to protest, and he isn’t quite yet at a point where he wants to lean into his humiliation so much that he’s willing to wet the bed. 

He shrugs into a robe over the soft pants he’s been wearing to sleep, and turns on the HoloNews on his way to the refresher. The stream it’s set to is playing footage of his own trial, so he switches to the business stream which, predictably, offers a recapitulation of the trade negotiations that he hasn’t really had the energy to follow closely so far. 

He does know enough to suspect that the Coruscant delegation mostly voted for his execution because they were annoyed that the Resistance had chosen to side with Naboo in the argument over the free trade treaty. It would have admittedly been a rather ridiculous reason to die, but he doesn’t really blame them: he himself has done much worse for reasons far pettier than that. 

Since he is up already, he switches on the electric kettle in the small en-suite kitchen, then leans against the counter while he is waiting for the water to boil, listening to the news report and playing idly with the pill bottle sitting on the counter next to the sink. He brews himself a cup of Tarine tea, and is just debating whether to crawl back into bed when the door alarm sounds. 

His heart rate spikes, his fingers trembling hard enough that he has to set the cup down so as not to spill hot tea over his hand. He hadn’t been joking when he told Dameron that one day someone might show up on his doorstep to assassinate him, but he wasn’t expecting it to happen so quickly, with the reports about his sentence still fresh on the news. 

The comm system shows him an unassuming woman in grey livery, holding a small package in her hands. She doesn’t appear to be armed, but Hux has enough experience to know that this doesn’t mean much. 

“Yes?” He calls into the comm, and the woman holds up the envelope in the direction of the camera. 

“Delivery!” 

“Leave it outside the door,” Hux demands, and then waits until she has long disappeared down the corridor before he carefully pulls the door open far enough to drag the envelope inside. 

He flips it over, and when he sees the uneven loopy handwriting on the front, his heart starts beating faster again for an entirely different reason. There’s only a non-descript key card in the envelope, accompanied by a brief note. Underneath the address and room number is a single line, consisting of today’s date and the comment: _Whenever you are ready._

He closes his eyes for a brief moment and takes a shaky breath. Apparently he’s not quite about to die just yet. 

The key card opens the door to a hotel suite on the 3200s levels, not so high up as to count as truly luxurious, but still high enough to cost a considerable amount of money. 

The center of the room is an enormous bed with a carved headboard, covered in pillows and blankets of various colors and shapes. To his left, an open door provides a glimpse of the refresher, complete with a circular bathtub and marble tiles. 

A second door in the back seems to lead to the living space, but before he can go and explore, Dameron appears in the doorframe, holding two glasses and a bottle of champagne. 

“You are here,” he states the obvious, and raises the champagne in his general direction. 

“Got something for us to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” Hux huffs. “Lifelong surveillance by the New Council?”

Dameron’s smile dims. He sets the bottle and glasses down on the nearest dresser, his face shifting through a range of expressions as if he is going over all the possible responses in his mind. Eventually, his features settle into careful neutrality:

“I thought you wanted this.”

Hux feels like the galaxy’s biggest idiot. 

“Yes,” he says. “This is what I wanted. I am sorry.” He glances around the space. 

“How in the stars did you pay for this?”

“I didn’t,” Dameron says dryly. “I decided to owe a big favor to an old friend. Well,” he adds, “I did pay for the champagne. And for this, just so I can pretend like I actually care what I put on my ass.”

He reaches into a heavy shopping bag hanging over the back of the chair and produces a container of high-quality body oil that he sets on the dresser next to the wine. 

“What else is in there?” Hux asks, and Dameron pulls out what looks like a tangle of sturdy leather straps, holding them out for him to see. 

Hux frowns in confusion. “What is that?”

Dameron lifts his left shoulder. “I thought you might want to tie me up.”

The onslaught of images that provokes is more than a little overwhelming, as is the mortified realization that Dameron has apparently been able to read his mind. He is still wrestling with his response when Dameron shrugs lightly and puts the straps on the dresser as well.

“Or not.”

“No,” Hux says hurriedly, before Dameron can decide to revoke the offer. 

“I mean, yes. No. I – yes. I want.”

“Alright,” Dameron says, smiling faintly, and reaches for the glasses again. “Now can I give you some champagne, or do I need to drink the entire bottle by myself?”

At some point after the second glass of champagne, time slows down. 

Their encounters have always been frantic, rushed, a violent clash of desire, frustration, and built-up negative energies, dulled only somewhat by the muted daze of hard liquor. There’s never been time to sit and watch and contemplate the different ways to take apart, _destroy_ the body he’s got under his hands, and as he loops the leather straps through the headboard and pulls them tight around Dameron’s wrists, he is so overwhelmed with possibilities that he is not sure he knows where to begin. 

In the end, he starts by sitting on Dameron’s chest, knees on either side of his head, and sliding his cock between Dameron’s lips. 

They don’t do this very often, are usually too preoccupied with getting to the part where Dameron is on all fours and getting pounded from behind, but they’ve done it often enough for Hux to know that Dameron is an excellent cocksucker, all enthusiasm and lots of skill. 

In this position, however, he doesn’t really get a chance to put his talent to use. In fact, there’s not much he can do at all except open his mouth, take however much of Hux’ length he is being fed, and try not to suffocate – and Hux finds that he quite likes him like that. 

He pushes his cock in deeper, and Dameron gags, tries to turn his head to the side reflexively, but with Hux’ knees holding him in place there’s nowhere for him to go. Tears are leaking from the corners of his eyes, and Hux thinks about brushing them away, but instead he watches them glide down Dameron’s cheekbones and drip off the side of his face, leaving behind a network of glittering trails. 

He picks up his pace, starts fucking Dameron’s mouth in earnest, sliding all the way in until his cock hits the back of Dameron’s throat, until Dameron has spit running down his chin and his face turns red, his breathing coming in labored, stuttering spurts, his bound hands flexing helplessly against the sheets. 

Blindly, Hux reaches backwards with one hand to brush his fingers against Dameron’s cock, and he is only slightly surprised to find it fully hard. 

“You actually enjoy this, don’t you,” he says, his voice wavering in a strange interspace between snide and awe.

Dameron makes a strangled noise that could mean _Yes, please_ or _Fuck you very much_ , but Hux is too far gone to pause and find out. He reaches down to grip Dameron’s hair so he can tilt his head backwards for a better angle, and holds his face in place as his hips jerk forward again, and again. He feels the heat of his orgasm bloom low in his spine, and he just barely manages to pull out before he comes all over Dameron’s face and hair and chest. 

Dameron sputters and coughs and licks his lips, and Hux is not actually physically able to get hard again, but his spent cock still makes a feeble attempt at the sight. 

He uses his thumb to wipe away the drops of come that are clinging to Dameron’s lashes, then climbs off his chest to kneel by his side. 

“You gonna untie me?” Dameron asks, his voice scratchy and hoarse, turning his head to the side with some effort. 

“Not yet,” Hux says thoughtfully, and wraps his fingers around Dameron’s cock. When he closes his mouth around the tip, Dameron breathes a shocked little gasp, although he cannot possibly be more surprised than Hux himself. 

He doesn’t take him in very deep, but he uses his teeth, very carefully scraping them over the sensitive skin. He likes the noises Dameron makes at that, his tiny helpless sobs, so he does it again, then follows the same trail with his tongue to soothe the sting.

“Uh,” Dameron groans above him, “I’m close,” and it occurs to Hux that this would be the moment to retreat and replace the friction of his tongue with that of his hand, but apparently he is in the mood to defy expectations, and so instead he locks his lips around the base of Dameron’s cock just as he tenses and starts to come. Hux swallows and breathes through his nose and doesn’t let up until the cock in his mouth is spent and soft. 

Then he rests his forehead against Dameron’s abdomen, feeling it rise and fall with every deep inhale.

“Uhm,” Dameron says, sounding dazed and downright wrecked. “What was that?”

He doesn’t really seem to wait for an answer though, which is just as well, because Hux doesn’t have one for him. He stays quiet, and since the prospect of moving is unpleasant, he also stays where he is, even if it means lying sideways on the bed and resting his head on Dameron’s thigh. 

Eventually, Dameron nudges him gently with his leg. “You need to let me out,” he says, and Hux pushes himself up to sitting so he can reach the closest of the straps with his hands. 

“You are leaving?” he asks without thinking and then wants to take it back as soon as the words are out. 

Dameron looks surprised. His lips are very red and slightly swollen, his hair is standing up in disarray. 

“No,” he says. “Just need to use the fresher, drink some water.” He slides to the edge of the bed, massaging his right wrist. “We got the room till tomorrow morning. I don’t have anywhere to be.”

“Oh,” Hux says, inanely, and lets himself fall back into the sheets. With one eye half open, he watches Dameron bend over to pick up some of the clothes that are scattered across the floor, shake them out and put them over the back of a chair. There’s something weirdly domestic about the action, and Hux marvels at the juxtaposition between the mundane domesticity of Dameron tidying a room and the fact that he’s completely naked, red chafe marks still clearly visible around his wrists. 

“What is this?” Dameron asks suddenly, pulling Hux out of his contemplation. There’s an odd twist to his voice that Hux has never heard before, and when he looks up, he feels all the color drain from his face. 

Dameron is holding the pill bottle in his hand, and his face is a mask of barely concealed rage, held together by thin threads of self-restraint. 

Hux opens his mouth, but Dameron cuts him off before he can offer whatever weak excuse he was going to make up. 

“Actually, never mind,” he says darkly. “Don’t tell me. I can recognize affide crystals when I see them. So that was your plan, huh? Come here and fuck me, and then hide somewhere and pop a suicide pill? Or were you going to do it right here, in the tub? Did you want me to find your body?”

“No!” Hux blurts out in something like shock. “No, I wouldn’t …” He struggles for air. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Oh, thank you, how considerate of you,” Dameron sneers. “So I was just going to find out from the HoloNews. Well, that’s a relief.”

Hux swallows. He feels strange, like his body doesn’t quite belong to him. He is vaguely aware that his hands are trembling, although he can’t really feel his limbs. 

Part of him wishes Dameron had drawn the wrong conclusion and assumed Hux had plans to kill him. Maybe he even would have done him a favor and shot him on the spot. 

“I didn’t have a concrete plan,” Hux finally forces himself to say. “I always carry them with me. Just in case.”

Somehow that doesn’t seem to appease Dameron in the slightest. “Just in case you felt in the mood to commit a little suicide? What in the name of the fucking Force is wrong with you? I thought we had a deal.”

With a lot of effort, Hux manages to roll his eyes. “Yes, for me to stay alive until we made it to a proper bed. Which we did.”

“That’s not what I meant when I said it,” Dameron growls, “and you fucking well know it.”

“I’m sorry, somehow I must have missed that passage in the legally binding contract we signed,” Hux snaps, his defensive reflexes finally switching into gear, his pulse picking up speed. “What business of yours is it anyway?”

Dameron stares at him as if he’s started speaking in binary. “What business ….” He trails off, at a loss for words. “You mean, aside from the fact that you’ve had your dick up my ass every week for the past five months?”

Hux shakes his head incredulously. “Yeah, and now the negotiations are over, the Council is only going to convene twice a year, and you are going to fuck off to who knows where to go back to your life.”

“And what about your life?” Dameron retorts. He’s yelling now, and Hux is grateful, in an absent-minded way, that they are in a respectable hotel where the walls are thick enough to look mostly soundproof. At least no one is likely to call security on them.

“What life?” he hisses. “I’ve been strongly encouraged by multiple parties to leave this planet and find a remote rock at the edge of the galaxy to settle down on, and it’s not exactly like I have a lot of job opportunities lined up.”

“Then find something to do!” Dameron shouts. “If you feel bad about what happened, then do something productive and start making up for the things you did wrong. If you don’t feel guilty about it, well, then find something you enjoy that doesn’t involve explosions and stay out of people’s way. You know there’s more things you can do with yourself besides killing people and reaming my ass. I thought – “

“You thought what?” Hux sneers. “I’ll be gardening flowers on some remote rim planet, and what? You are going to drop by every other Benduday in your X-wing for a quick fuck, and no one will notice? What do you think your friends will say when they find out that you’ve been bending over for the guy who’s most famous for blowing up the Hosnian system? Cut out the bantha shit and stop lying to me, Dameron, this isn’t going to last.”

“You –“ For a moment, it looks like Dameron might actually hit him, and Hux thinks that might be a good first step. Instead, he breaks off abruptly and sits down on the edge of the bed, with his back turned towards Hux. 

“What am I even doing, _fuck_ ,” he says thickly, and then puts his face in his hands.

Hux stares at his shaking back, uncomprehendingly, and it is a very long time until he realizes, with dawning bottomless horror, that Dameron is crying. 

He looks down at himself. The red pressure spots on his knees still haven’t faded, and his pubic hair is matted with dried come. The scar on his thigh, souvenir from General Finn’s blaster shot, is a circular raised pattern of twisted roots, an ugly purple against the translucent white of his skin. 

With some effort, he folds himself up against the headboard and pulls the covers over his legs. For a while, he watches Dameron’s hunched shoulders, the way they shake slightly with every silent sob. Then he carefully clears his throat. 

“Come back to bed,” he says. 

Dameron’s head reels back at that, and he is staring at him incredulously from red-rimmed, swollen eyes. 

“Seriously?” Dameron says, and even though his voice is wobbly, the angry disbelief is clearly audible underneath. “That’s what you are going to go with?”

Hux swallows. “Please,” he tries again. “Poe. Just – just come back to bed.”

Dameron’s face doesn’t change, but his eyes soften just the slightest bit. Finally, he groans slightly, as if he is deeply disappointed with himself, and lifts the covers to slip between the sheets. 

There are at least two feet of space between them. Dameron settles on his back, ramrod straight, and stares up at the ceiling, unblinking. Hux curls up on his side, one hand under his cheek, and contemplates Dameron’s profile, just in case this ends up being the last time he gets to see it up close.

“You know I’m going to destroy those crystals,” Dameron finally says, when Hux has already given up on the expectation that he might talk. 

“Yeah,” he says, without raising his head from the pillow. “I know.”

“And you know I’m going to add restrictions to your microchip that alert us to toxins in your system and tip us off every time you come even within a hundred meters of a known drug or arms seller?”

“I know,” he says, tonelessly. 

“Fuck,” Dameron curses quietly, still staring up at the ceiling. “I should report you.”

“Yes,” Hux replies softly. “I know.”

Dameron falls silent after that, and Hux’ eyes must have drifted closed at some point, because he blinks them open when he hears Dameron roll over, and finds himself staring right into the other man’s face. 

“You know, I told my droid about us,” Dameron says. “And Finn.”

Hux struggles, without much success, to hide his shock. 

“And how did that go?” he finally asks, and Dameron sighs a little.

“He doesn’t really understand, and he isn’t sure he entirely approves,” he says slowly. “But …”

“But what?” Hux asks, with a growing sense of dread. 

“He’s still my friend,” Dameron shrugs. “He’s not going to tell. And he’s got my back.”

Hux lifts his brows. “It’s that simple, huh?” he asks, with more sarcasm than the situation warrants, and clamps down hard on the renewed surge of useless, pathetic jealousy he feels rising in his chest.

A corner of Dameron’s mouth shifts up the tiniest bit, as if he knows exactly what’s going on in Hux’ head. It’s not a smile, but it’s the closest he has come to one since he stopped crying at least.

“Sometimes it is,” he says easily. “Yeah.”

“Must be nice to have friends you can trust,” Hux replies, keeping his voice as neutral as he can manage, and Dameron actually chuckles at that, although it’s a tired and weary sound. 

“You would be surprised,” he says. “But who knows? This could be your chance to find out.”

He turns onto his back again, then, the space between them only slightly smaller than it was before. Hux once more stares at the side of his face and swallows his disappointment. 

“Don’t kill yourself,” Dameron suddenly says, his voice rough. “I –“ He clears his throat, trails off. “Just – please don’t.”

“I won’t,” Hux says. He isn’t sure how much his word is even worth, but he gives it nonetheless, maybe more so for himself than for Dameron’s sake. “I promise.” 

“Good,” Dameron nods, and folds his hands on his chest, closing his eyes. 

“Poe,” Hux starts over, after a moment of hesitation, because Dameron didn’t hit him the first time he said it, and he finds that he wants to try it again. 

“Yes?” Dameron asks, without moving. 

“For what it’s worth,” Hux says. “I’m –“ 

He pauses. There are a number of things he wants to say, but he isn’t quite sure he has the words. So he starts with the one he’s recently had the most practice with. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Poe says, and turns his head to look at him. His expression is serious, his eyes are clear, and Hux wonders what they see in his face. 

“I know.”


End file.
